


Touch And Feel

by flawedamythyst



Series: Horse And Carriage [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Asexual!Sherlock, M/M, Mention of harm to children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-27
Updated: 2011-07-27
Packaged: 2017-10-21 19:52:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/229105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is still trying to feel his way around what this marriage thing means for him and Sherlock as they investigate the murder of a woman and the disappearance of her daughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch And Feel

John was watching a mindless film on the telly, letting the trite dialogue and overly dramatic action scenes wash over him. An asteroid was heading straight for earth and only some unknown American scientist could save the day.

He'd had a long and irritating day at work, dealing with a never-ending parade of hypochondriacs and hysterical mothers. Then he'd ended up staying later than he'd meant to, trying to tackle the mound of paperwork on his desk, which meant that by the time he got on the Tube for home, it was crammed with commuter traffic; crowded, noisy, hemming him in.

He'd arrived home, soaked through by a shower of heavy rain that started the moment he exited the Tube station, to find the flat empty. He wasn't even sure why that had felt like the ultimate crappy end to a rubbish day, but it had been enough to make him want to do nothing more than curl up on the sofa and watch the President maintain that his White House didn't listen to crackpots and proceed to threaten the scientist with the Secret Service while the asteroid came ever closer to wiping out all human life.

It wasn't that he expected Sherlock to be waiting for him when he got in from work like some kind of fifties housewife, or even that he didn't know that Sherlock had his own things to do; and it wasn't as if coming home to whatever crazed experiment Sherlock had got it into his head to ruin the kitchen table with this time was in any way restful, and half the time he was screeching away on his violin as if he knew what a headache commuter traffic gave John and couldn't wait to make it worse, and-

No, really, why was having the flat to himself for once a bad thing? John took a deep breath and tried to let himself bathe in the luxury of peace and quiet. It didn't work quite as well as he'd hoped – somehow he just found himself thinking of the empty blankness of the flat he'd had before he'd moved into 221B. He scowled to himself and resolutely pushed the memories away. Maybe he'd feel better if he ordered pizza.

The scientist had joined up with a member of the Secret Service and they were planning to break into a missile silo in Alaska in order to shoot the asteroid out of the sky when Sherlock finally arrived home.

“John!” he greeted him cheerfully, which meant whatever he'd been up to was either disturbing or completely incomprehensible. Or both. “Had a good day?”

“No,” said John. Neither pizza nor the beer he had allowed himself with it had brought his mood up at all, and he was starting to think about just having an early night in order to escape it.

Sherlock gave him an assessing look. “Ah, you got caught in that rain squall,” he said. “And you really should learn to leave your paperwork until the morning if it means you're going to end up in the rush hour.”

John gaped at him. “How did you-” He shook his head. “I really should be used to that by now.” The knot of irritated grumpiness was beginning to loosen in his chest and he wondered how Sherlock's mere presence could do that.

Sherlock flopped down onto the sofa next to him. “It's so simple, if you'd only look properly,” he said. He was smiling as he said it though, so John didn't bother taking offence.

Sherlock's good mood was probably making him feel better, John decided after a moment. Sherlock's moods, whether good or bad, always managed to fill whatever room he was in, saturating the atmosphere. It made his depressions almost as unbearable for John as they were for Sherlock, but when he was happy it seemed as if the whole flat reverberated with it.

Sherlock glanced at the telly screen and frowned. “What on earth is this rubbish?”

John looked back in time to see the scientist follow the Secret Service agent underneath a barbed wire fence. “They're breaking into a nuclear missile facility in order to blow an asteroid away before it destroys life on earth,” he summed up.

Sherlock gave him a gaping look of horror. “Surely they must know that wouldn't work? Surely everyone must know that?”

John nodded back at the screen, where the scientist was saying something dramatic to the Secret Service agent, who looked as if she was going to swoon at his manliness. “He's one of the leading astrophysicists in America. I'm sure he knows what he's doing.”

The look on Sherlock's face didn't change. “My God,” he moaned. “What kind of a world do we live in that allows this kind of rubbish?” He slumped sideways, as if just existing in the same room as a TV playing the film was too much for his body to take. He ended up draped across the sofa, his face pressed into the arm of John's jumper.

“It's a Hollywood blockbuster,” John pointed out. “It's meant to be a load of rubbish.”

Sherlock groaned into his jumper.

“You can make as much fun of it as you like,” John allowed. He wasn't all that interested in the ending, after all, and Sherlock's sniping was always hilarious.

Sherlock immediately shifted so that he could see the screen, although he stayed pressed against John, resting his head on his shoulder instead. The scientist had just hacked into a keypad lock using his mobile phone and a piece of wire.

“No military facility would have that kind of lock,” pronounced Sherlock. “A seven-year-old could get through it; you just need to short-circuit the interior circuitry. And there's no way that mobile trick would have worked, especially with a civilian mobile. The military use completely different bandwidths.”

He was warm against John's side, nestled in as if he belonged there. John felt a bit awkward, as he always did when Sherlock pushed the boundaries of normal physical contact between friends.

 _We're not friends, though,_ he remembered. Or at least, not just friends. They were married, and Sherlock was obviously okay with it; more than okay, he was leading it. It occurred to John, not for the first time, that Sherlock probably hadn't had a lot of physical affection since he'd been a small child, and almost certainly hadn't cuddled with someone on the sofa as an adult. John forced the awkwardness away resolutely, then pulled his arm out from under Sherlock's weight to wrap around his shoulders. If they were going to cuddle on the sofa, then they were damned well going to cuddle properly.

Sherlock shifted so that he was resting comfortably in the crook of John's arm, kicking his shoes off so that he could curl his legs up on the sofa. On screen, the scientist had found the main control room and was desperately trying to get inside.

“He just needs a hairpin to get through that door,” said Sherlock. “The lock is atrociously simple. She'd be able to lend him one if she had her hair in a more sensible manner.” The Secret Service agent had long, dark hair that was hanging loose down her back which should be getting horribly in the way but had somehow managed to remain perfectly in place.

The base's security had finally found them, giving the Secret Service agent a chance to declare that she'd stay behind to stall them while the scientist went on to set off the missile. There was a romantic moment as they parted that made Sherlock make a disgusted noise in his throat that John silently agreed with. There was a time and a place for romance, and during a mission to break into a military base whilst under gunfire was most definitely not it.

The Secret Service agent turned to return fire as the scientist went through the door and John had his chance to add to the snark. “She's not even holding her gun correctly,” he said. “Even you were less inept with a firearm.”

“I was not inept,” said Sherlock.

John laughed. “Sherlock, you nearly shot yourself in the back of the head and saved Moriarty the bother,” he said.

Sherlock grumbled but didn't refute that.

The Secret Service agent darted across the corridor, her hair flowing out behind her. “Why hasn't she had to reload yet?” asked John. “And how have those soldiers failed to hit her – are they all blind or something? She's hardly bothering with taking cover, and it's not as if they're particularly far away.”

“We can't all be crack shots,” sniped Sherlock, and then the scene changed back to the scientist in the main control room and Sherlock got to let loose a stream of vitriol covering military technology, computer security and the logistics of missile systems. By the time he had finished John almost felt he deserved a round of applause. Giving him one would involve moving his arm from around Sherlock's shoulders, though, and John was reluctant to do that.

That thought made him blink with surprise. Indulging Sherlock's desire for physical contact was one thing, not wanting to move away was another. He had a split second of 'but I'm not gay!' panic that was resolved as soon as he tried to imagine doing anything more sexual with Sherlock. Even the idea of kissing him was vaguely distasteful.

It was just a ridiculously-close-friends thing, he told himself. After all, some women did this sort of thing all the time with their friends, and it didn't mean anything.

The scientist succeeded in launching a missile into space and Sherlock made a disgusted noise. “If this works,” he said, “I shall despair of the entire American nation.”

“I hardly think they'd have made a film where an asteroid destroys all life on earth at the end,” said John.

“Maybe Britain will save the day,” said Sherlock. “Just sitting here I can think of eight – no, nine - better plans. With a bit of research and some time, I'm sure I could think of more.”

John laughed. “I bet Mycroft's already got a whole list,” he said. “And a Secret Asteroid Taskforce.”

Sherlock made a face. “True,” he acknowledged.

The asteroid blew up into a thousand tiny fragments with a loud boom. Sherlock made a noise of heartfelt despair. “There's no noise in space!”

“Oh, you know that, but not that the earth orbits the sun,” said John. He felt Sherlock's scowl against his shoulder.

“One day you'll get bored of bringing that up,” he said. “I'd have thought that day would have been long ago, but it seems you're small-minded enough to hold onto it far longer than I'd have guessed.”

John snorted. “Well, it's not as if you give me many things to tease you about,” he said. “I have to make do with what I've got.”

The President realised his mistake when the reports of the explosion were brought to him, and got on the phone to the missile base immediately to demand they stand down and acclaim the scientist and the Secret Service agent as heroes.

“Breaking into a military base is still treason,” John pointed out. “No matter why they did it. And she definitely shot at least one of those soldiers. What are they going to tell his family?”

“Maybe they'll arrest them later, once their guard is down,” suggested Sherlock.

The Secret Service agent rushed into the control room to find the scientist and they had another cheesy romantic moment, followed by a passionate embrace. Sherlock repeated his earlier disgusted noise and then grabbed the remote and flicked it off.

“Utter tripe,” he pronounced.

“Yeah,” agreed John. He was feeling completely relaxed now, as if the whole horrible day hadn't even happened. It was amazing what a bit of mockery could do. “Tea?” he suggested.

“Please,” said Sherlock, pulling away from John in order to sit up properly.

The kettle hadn't even had time to boil before Sherlock's phone beeped. He glanced at the screen for a second and instantly tapped a response, then he glanced at John with a smile.

 _There's been a murder,_ thought John, sighing and turning the kettle off.

Another text came through and Sherlock glanced at it. “Murdered woman and a missing child,” he announced. “And the murderer left me a note.” He turned away, grabbing up his coat and swinging it on. “Come on, John!”

He rushed off down the stairs and John hurried after him, still trying to put his own coat on.

 

****

 

The dead woman was sprawled out on the carpet in her sitting room, two stab wounds in her back. The note to Sherlock had been written in her blood on the floor beside her.

 _Ready for another round, Sherlock?_

“Moriarty,” said John in a quiet voice. Moriarty had all but disappeared after the incident at the pool, to Sherlock's great frustration, but there had been more than enough traces and hints of him for them to know that he was still out there, somewhere, directing crime at all levels.

“Obviously,” said Sherlock, crouching down to examine the writing. “It looks as if he's finally decided to come out of hiding. Found the murder weapon?”

The question seemed to catch Lestrade off-guard. John wondered if he'd been caught up trying to decide if it was a good thing that Moriarty was coming out of hiding to give them a second chance at catching him, or if it would just have been better just to never hear from the madman again. “Not yet,” he said.

Sherlock sighed. “What about the paint brush?” he asked.

Lestrade looked confused. “Paint brush?” he repeated.

Sherlock sighed impatiently and gestured at the writing. “Paint brush,” he said. “The murderer must have brought it with him on purpose; he knew he was going to be writing this.” He abruptly stood up and started going around the room, peering at seemingly irrelevant objects every so often.

“We've already got a suspect,” said Donovan. “You don't need to bother with all your weirdo snooping.”

Sherlock turned to her with a raised eyebrow. “The estranged husband?” he asked.

She nodded, too used to Sherlock to be surprised that he already knew the victim's marital status. “He was the one who found the body. Said he came over for a chat, but who goes to see their ex at gone nine at night? Plus we found papers on her desk that would have granted sole custody of the kid to her, cutting him out of his daughter's life completely. He murdered her and abducted the girl to prevent that. Obvious.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “The only obvious thing is your incredible stupidity,” he said. “Of course it wasn't the husband. Why would he come back and pretend to discover her body if he had the girl? He could have got her out of the country before the body was even found. Besides which, why on earth would he write _me_ a note?”

“Maybe he's trying to divert suspicion from himself,” suggested Anderson. “Stash the kid somewhere for a bit, until he's been cleared, then take her abroad?”

Sherlock gave him a withering look. “How on earth do you get through life without hurting yourself?” He turned back to Lestrade. “Show me the child's room.”

Lestrade took them upstairs to the daughter's bedroom. It was in considerable disarray, with an over-turned chair, a smashed lamp and, most worryingly, a splatter of blood on the floor next to the remains of the lamp. John had to take a deep breath to avoid thinking too carefully about what that might mean for the little girl.

Sherlock seemed to have no such concerns, examining the room with just as much thoroughness as he had the one downstairs. John and the police just watched him, knowing better by now than to interrupt. When he eventually finished, he straightened up and fixed Donovan with a superior and exasperated look.

“Why would the girl have struggled against her own father?” he asked.

“He'd just murdered her mother,” she pointed out.

Sherlock glanced at John as if to share the stupidity of the world with him. “Can you believe this rubbish?” he said.

“Sherlock,” said Lestrade in a warning voice. “Stop being rude to my officers.” Sherlock let out a huffy breath and turned away, looking back at the room. “And you two,” continued Lestrade, fixing Anderson and Donovan with a grim look, “should know better than to convict a man on just the first glance at the evidence. It might just as easily be some random nutter as the husband.” He looked back at Sherlock. “What have you got?”

“More than enough to know it wasn't either 'some random nutter' or the husband,” said Sherlock. “I will need to talk to him, though.” He frowned. “Something's not right here,” he said to himself in a half-tone. “What is it?”

“We've got him at the Yard,” said Lestrade, “but he's very upset. I'm not letting you speak to him if you're going to be insensitive.”

“John will be with me,” said Sherlock, tearing himself away from examining the room. “He can smooth over any misunderstandings.”

Lestrade glanced at John, who just shrugged back, privately doubting that he'd have any influence if Sherlock lost his temper, as he so frequently did. He wondered if that was the role that Sherlock had assigned him in his head. He could just imagine the entry in his Log Of Useful People now.

 _John: sorts out people when they get upset. And makes tea, of course._

“Fine,” said Lestrade with a sigh. “Just find the girl, yeah? Before anything happens to her.”

“Something has already happened to her,” Sherlock said, heading out of the room.

John followed him, thinking back to the times he had been kidnapped, and how upsetting and disorientating it always was. For a child, it must be absolutely terrifying, especially if she knew what had happened to her mother. He vowed that they were going to get her back, but he couldn't hide from the knowledge that Sherlock was right. Something had already happened to her, and no matter how well this affair ended, it was going to haunt her for the rest of her life.

Sherlock paused outside the house for John to catch up. One look at John's face was apparently all he needed to tell his thoughts, because his expression shifted in a manner that would likely have been imperceptible to anyone who didn't know him as well than John did. As John stepped up next to him, Sherlock moved in, nudging their shoulders together.

“There will be tea at the Yard,” he said, as if prophesying.

John found himself smiling despite the cold knot in his stomach. At some point Sherlock had decided that the best way to respond to any sign of John's emotional distress was with tea.

“Probably, but what are the chances of us having time to drink any once you've deduced some clue from the husband?” he asked.

Sherlock tipped his head to one side in acknowledgement of that fact. “There may be a chance,” he said, then reached out and took John's wrist in a proprietorial manner. “At any rate, let's get going. We'll be able to get a taxi this way.”

“Or I could give you a lift,” said Lestrade from behind them as Sherlock tugged John off to the left.

“I'm not going in a police car,” said Sherlock without looking back. “We'll see you at the Yard.”

John glanced back at Lestrade to share a look with him, only to find that Lestrade was looking at where Sherlock was holding John's wrist and trying to suppress a smirk. John pulled his arm out of Sherlock's grip and buried his hands in his pockets instead. Sherlock shot him a sharp glance, but said nothing.

 

****

 

Derrick Haven was in one of the interview rooms at Scotland Yard, slumped in a hard plastic chair and staring into the depths of a cup of coffee that seemed untouched. He looked up when Sherlock burst into the room and swept in with John a couple of steps behind him, wondering to himself if Sherlock had any idea how much of a drama queen he was.

Derrick's eyes flicked between the two of them. “What is it now?” he asked tiredly. “I wish you people would stop wasting time with me and hurry up with finding Chlöe.”

“That's precisely what we're doing,” said Sherlock, sitting down at the table. “Now, tell me everything. Every detail, please.”

“I've been through this already,” Derrick complained.

“Not with me,” said Sherlock. “Start with the status of your relationship with your wife.”

John settled in the chair next to Sherlock, trying to look sympathetic and wondering how he was meant to stop Sherlock saying anything inappropriate when he had absolutely no idea, in any given moment, what was going to come out of his mouth next.

Derrick rubbed his hands over his face. “I didn't kill her,” he said.

“I'm fully aware of that,” said Sherlock. “Just answer the question.”

Derrick looked up with a frown, then launched into his story. “We've been separated just over five months, but we've been patching it up. Those custody papers you all keep going on about are from ages ago, when she was trying to get back at me. I was coming over tonight to-”

He broke off, and Sherlock supplied the end of his sentence for him, “have sex.”

Derrick looked embarrassed, but nodded. “Yeah. Right. She was talking about letting me move back in; I wouldn't have killed her.” He took a deep breath. “I loved her.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “Then why did you cheat on her in the first place?” he asked.

Derrick looked up in surprise. “I'm sorry?” he asked.

“You left because of an affair,” said Sherlock. “A long-running one, I suspect. That's not the act of a man in love.”

“How did you-?” started Derrick, then he broke off to glare at Sherlock. “It was a mistake,” he said. “I've been making it up to her.”

Sherlock let out a derisive snort and John cleared his throat pointedly. Sherlock glanced at him and John tried to signal with raised eyebrows that he was cutting it a bit close. Sherlock rolled his eyes, but when he looked back to Derrick, he changed the subject. “Tell me exactly what happened tonight,” he demanded. “Everything you saw from the moment you arrived at the house.”

“I didn't see anything,” said Derrick. “Not until I was inside. I've still got my key, so I let myself in to avoid waking Chlöe, and Marion was...she was just lying there.” He paused and took a deep breath.

“You didn't touch anything?” asked Sherlock, leaning forward.

Derrick shook his head. “Just her neck. I thought I should look for a pulse, but when I touched her....it was clear she was dead.” He let out a ragged half-breath and ducked his head.

“And then?” prompted Sherlock.

“Then I went upstairs to check on Chlöe,” said Derrick, pulling himself together, “but she was... her room was empty.” He sounded desolate as he said that, and John felt his heart go out to him.

“And you didn't touch anything there,” pressed Sherlock. “Didn't open the wardrobe to check that she wasn't inside, or anything?”

Derrick frowned at him. “No, I think it was already open,” he said. “I didn't touch anything, I just ran to call the police.”

Sherlock sat back. “Ah,” he said, as if everything had become clear to him. As usual when he made such a noise, nothing had become clear to John, but he was rapidly getting used to that.

“You have to find her,” Derrick said, desperation flooding his voice. “I don't know what I'll do if...” His voice trailed off and he swallowed noisily.

“I will,” said Sherlock with his usual confidence. “Who was your lover?”

Derrick looked up with surprise at the subject change. “What?”

Sherlock sighed impatiently. “The woman whom you left your wife for. Who was it? Someone younger, obviously, from your workplace but not your department, and I've no doubt I could find her easily enough given time, but it would be better for Chlöe if you just told me.”

“Karen, Karen Richmond. She's in HR, but I don't see why she's important,” said Derrick, frowning. “She's never even met Marion or Chlöe.”

Sherlock stood up. “That's irrelevant in this case,” he said. “Come on, John, we've got all we need.”

He left the room without waiting for a response, and John gave Derrick an apologetic look. It felt as if at least one of them should attempt some empathy, and it certainly wasn't going to be Sherlock.

“I'm sorry for your loss,” he said as sympathetically as he could, wishing the words didn't feel so inadequate.

Derrick gave him a dead-eyed look. “Just find her, please,” he said.

John nodded then followed Sherlock out, leaving Derrick to slump back down with a sigh, knotting his fingers together and holding on tightly enough to turn his knuckles white.

Lestrade was waiting for them in the corridor. “We need Karen Richmond,” announced Sherlock. “Bring her here as intimidatingly as you can – uniforms and sirens and all those theatrics that the police love so much. I need her to be terrified.”

“Why?” asked Lestrade with a frown.

Sherlock fixed him with a superior look and sighed in a disappointed and put-upon manner. “If you can't even comprehend that, then I have no hope for the future of the police force,” he said.

John sighed. “Sherlock,” he said in a warning tone, and Sherlock glanced at him, then scowled.

“You'll see when she gets here,” he said to Lestrade, then turned away. “There's time for tea after all,” he told John, and swept away in the direction of the canteen.

John and Lestrade exchanged weary looks. “I'm sure he's getting worse,” said John.

Lestrade shook his head. “No, he was much worse before you came along,” he said. “He once told me that he was going to advise the chief inspector to replace me with a cow, because it would be just as useless at police work, but at least it would provide milk.”

John laughed. “Perhaps you should have just started giving him a carton of milk every time he came to a crime scene,” he suggested.

Lestrade snorted. “That would have just ended with him hiding it somewhere in my desk to go off.”

“Car, actually,” said Sherlock, coming back out of the canteen. “Desk is too obvious. Are you coming, John?”

John exchanged looks with Lestrade. “Yeah, I'm coming,” he said.

Sherlock nodded, then fixed his gaze on Lestrade. “Karen Richmond,” he reminded him.

Lestrade glared at him. “We're on it,” he said shortly before walking away, heading for his office.

“Come on,” said Sherlock to John. “They look at me oddly when I talk to myself in here. It's distracting.”

John raised an eyebrow, not sure he could really believe that Sherlock would notice or care about anyone looking at him oddly, but dutifully followed him anyway.

“You could have brought your skull,” he said. “Then I could have stayed at home.” He was beginning to feel a bit useless, like he always did on the cases that solely relied on Sherlock's observations and genius. There was no place for either a doctor or a soldier on this one, not unless it turned out the girl was in a far worse situation than he was hoping for.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “Then they really would have looked at me oddly,” he said. “Besides,” he added negligently, “I always work better when you're by my side. The skull's not the same.”

For Sherlock that was high praise indeed, and John found himself feeling slightly unbalanced as they sat down with their tea, Sherlock stretching his legs out under the table so that their feet were knocking together. He rambled in a disjointed manner as they drank, flitting from one subject to another without pausing and without it ever being clear how any of what he was saying was related to the case. John sat back and watched him rather than bothering to listen, following the exuberant gestures of his hands with his eyes. Sherlock was fascinating when he was in this mood, nothing but pure genius flowing out of him as his brain moved at breathtaking speeds. John found himself going into a bit of a daze, his long day finally catching up with him.

Lestrade came in after about twenty minutes to tell them that Karen Richmond was waiting in an interrogation room, and John had to shake his head to pull himself out of his trance and force his mind to focus back on the here-and-now.

“Excellent!” exclaimed Sherlock, leaping up without finishing his sentence.

Karen Richmond had obviously been roused from her bed and had dressed in whatever had been closest to hand. Her hair was unbrushed and her face bare of make-up, except for a smudge of black under her left eye. She looked pale and nervous, her arms wrapped tightly around her chest. Sherlock observed her for a moment through the window in the door, then nodded to himself.

“Follow my lead,” he told John. “Back up anything I say.” He went in before John could ask what exactly he was planning to say, leaving John no choice but to follow and hope for the best, as always.

Sherlock swept in dramatically and sat down opposite Karen, then just stared at her for a long moment before finally speaking. “Karen Richmond,” he said in a voice of deep disapproval. “What have you done?”

She burst into floods of noisy tears. Sherlock looked taken aback for a split second and John thought that he hadn't expected such an emotional reaction – but then, extreme emotions were one of the few things that tended to trip him up.

“I didn't know they'd take the girl,” Karen sobbed. “I wouldn't have done it if I'd known, please believe me.”

Sherlock leaned forward. “Your protests are irrelevant,” he said. “They have taken the girl, and likely have unpleasant intentions for her, and it's because of your actions.”

Karen's sobs grew noisier. “I didn't know,” she said again. “I'd never hurt a child.”

“But you would hurt Marion Haven,” said Sherlock.

Karen took a deep, shuddering breath. “That's different,” she claimed. “Derrick was going to go back to her, abandon me. He said that once he left her, we'd be able to be properly together, but we never even lived together, and then he was going back to that cow, telling me that he couldn't see me any more. I couldn't stand it.”

“So you found someone to kill her,” summarised Sherlock. “Where?”

Karen shook her head. “It was on the internet. I only searched as a stupid late-night thing, and there was this site. The Art Of Crime. There was an email address and....I just wanted to see how much it was, really, I wasn't actually going to do it.”

“You did do it, though,” said Sherlock. “Did you get a bargain?”

“He said that they'd get their payment from Marion,” said Karen, sniffing. “I thought he meant that they'd steal her stuff, not that they'd take Chlöe.” Tears began to well up again in her eyes, and John saw an expression of distaste cross Sherlock's face.

“Who?” he demanded.

“I don't know,” she said. “The emails were signed M, but it wasn't him who did it. He said he knew someone, and gave me a number to text Marion's address to.”

“Moriarty,” said John in a low voice.

Sherlock glanced at him. “Obviously,” he said. “The Art Of Crime – who else would it be?” He looked back at Karen, who had started to sob into her hands, then stood up. “I don't think we're getting anything else out of her.”

They left her in the interrogation room, still crying. Lestrade was outside, looking grim. Clearly he'd been listening to the interview.

“You can charge her,” said Sherlock. “She doesn't know anything of interest.”

“And the child?” asked Lestrade. “Where is she?”

Sherlock glared at him. “I'm working on it,” he snapped.

Lestrade sighed and went into the interrogation room.

“I don't understand how you knew it was her,” confessed John. He'd been trying to piece it together since Karen had confessed, but there didn't seem to have been any hint in what Derrick had said or at the crime scene that it was the work of a scorned lover.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Isn't it obvious?” he asked. “Of course it was the lover. The killing was obviously done by a professional, but why would a professional break in and kill a suburban housewife? Must have been a hit then. It takes a strong motive to do something as premeditated and cold as hiring a killer, so it must be personal. Not the husband, so must be his jilted lover. Marion Haven wasn't involved in anything else that would prompt such an extreme reaction. Add in that Karen had clearly been too emotionally distraught this evening to take her make-up off properly, and that she'd vomited at some point, most likely after the police told her why she was being brought in and what had happened to the child, and there really was no question in the matter.”

John found himself reaching out and grabbing Sherlock's arms. “Brilliant,” he said. “That's...brilliant.”

Sherlock momentarily taken aback, glancing down at John's hands for a moment, then he shrugged awkwardly. “Self-evident,” he said, a tiny smug smile hovering around the edges of his mouth.

John grinned at him. “Don't pretend to be modest,” he said.

Sherlock glanced down at John's hands again, and John realised that he was rubbing his thumbs over the inside of Sherlock's arms. How had he not noticed himself doing that? He was going to let go and step back when Sherlock looked back at him, his smile blossoming into a grin.

“Well, I am a genius,” he said with every scrap of arrogance he had, then brought his own hands up to hold onto John's arms. John had the same thought that he had had on the sofa earlier: _well, we are married_ , and kept his hands exactly where they were.

“Which is how I'm going to be able to find the girl,” continued Sherlock.

“You know where she is?” asked John.

“Almost,” said Sherlock. “I should have the full details very soon.”

John let go and stepped away then, forcing Sherlock's hands to fall away from his arms. “Well, get on with it then,” he said. Somewhere there was a girl who was almost certainly frightened, and probably suffering. The sooner they got to her, the better.

Sherlock rolled his eyes, but he was already moving back towards the interrogation room. “Lestrade!” he called, barging through the door to where Lestrade was midway through arresting Karen Richmond. “We need to go back to the house. We need to get the girl.”

“She's at the house?” asked Lestrade.

“Of course not, that's just where we're starting,” called Sherlock, already heading out again. “And bring the father.”

 

****

 

Once they got back to the house, Sherlock led them up to the girl's bedroom again.

“Look, look!” he said, gesturing at the room. “It's all here, of course it is, I just had to _see._ ” He turned to John. “Look at the bed sheets,” he commanded.

John did. They were rumpled. “She was sleeping,” he tried.

Sherlock gave him an exasperated look. “She woke up,” he said. “They've been pushed aside by her, not pulled off by an abductor. She heard something and got up. She went downstairs and saw something – that ridiculous message being written, probably. It's so _sloppy_ for a professional, Moriarty knows better than that. Wasting time writing out taunts at a murder scene when there's a witness around – stupid, stupid! The girl saw it, and ran. She came back up here to her room, terrified.” He pointed at the wardrobe. “She hid in there, but she's seen films, TV, she thinks ahead.” He gestured down at the shattered ruins of the lamp. “She takes a weapon with her. When the murderer opens the door, she hits him with it. That's not _her_ blood, it's his. He's dazed, taken aback; no one expects a child to fight back, and she runs.” He turned on his heel and stared at Derrick Haven, who was staring at him with all the shock of someone who had never seen Sherlock at work before. “Where did she go?” he demanded.

John could almost see everything as Sherlock described it, playing out like a film.

Derrick blinked at Sherlock. “I don't know,” he said.

Sherlock frowned at him. “Of course you do,” he said. “Somewhere near-by, somewhere she'd have felt safe. Not a friend's house; they'd have called if she'd turned up there. A den, somewhere she goes to play, somewhere hidden.”

“There's a place in the park,” said Derrick slowly. “A bush – it's got a clear space inside, she pretends it's a castle.”

A smug smile spread across Sherlock's face. “That's where she is,” he said to Lestrade.

Derrick's eyes widened, then he turned and rushed off down the stairs.

John, Sherlock and Lestrade followed him down the road and halfway across the park, until he ducked behind a bench into a small stand of trees.

“Chlöe!” called Derrick, sounding desperate. “Chlöe, are you here? It's Daddy, come out, sweetheart, it's safe now.”

There was a large bush in the middle of the trees and John could see a hole in it, the kind of place where kids crawled to play games. There was a vague movement from deep within and a faint voice. “Daddy?”

“Chlöe,” said Derrick, dropping to his knees to peer through the hole. “Oh, god, Chlöe, please come out. It's safe. These are policemen. No one's going to hurt you.”

There was more movement from the bush, then a small body emerged and leapt into Derrick's arms. “Daddy, Daddy,” she sobbed. “I knew you'd come.”

John watched for a moment, a warm feeling flooding through him at the sight, then turned to look at Sherlock, who was smiling in satisfaction.

“There's still a killer out there,” Lestrade said pointedly.

“He'll be long gone,” said Sherlock. “Either he'll have fled the country by now, or Moriarty will have made him vanish; he'll probably kill him once he finds out just how incompetent he's been. Besides which, you have his blood at the crime scene. He's a professional, but careless. I find it hard to believe that you won't have some record of his DNA on file.”

“And Moriarty?” asked Lestrade. “If he's starting to leave you notes-”

“It means that he's coming out of hiding,” interrupted Sherlock. “And if he continues to be as lax as he was with this case, it shouldn't be long before he makes a mistake that means I can catch him. There's nothing to be done until that happens, though. There's no way to trace him from this crime.”

Lestrade sighed. “No,” he admitted. He looked back at where Derrick and Chlöe were still hugging tightly, Derrick whispering something in his daughter's ear.

Chlöe looked distraught still and John thought about what it must be like to see your mother murdered at such a young age and the terrifying few hours she must have spent in the bush, and abruptly the satisfaction of a resolved case was gone, replaced by a tired, worn feeling. Moriarty might have had a hand in this one, but at the heart of it was an ordinary person, a woman who wanted her rival gone so desperately that she didn't think about the consequences. And now there was a child whose life had been shattered, and a man who looked to have aged two decades in one night who was all that was left to help her through it.

All the weariness from earlier came flooding back. He looked at Sherlock. “Can we go home now?” he asked.

Sherlock looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. “Yes, we're done here.”

 

****

 

John made the tea when they got back to the flat. Sherlock leaned back against the wall and watched him with crossed arms.

“If Moriarty's back,” John started hesitantly.

“I shall not allow him to play games with me again,” said Sherlock.

“Right,” said John. “Good.” That hadn't been quite what he'd been going to say, but it was well worth hearing.

Sherlock sighed. “Nor shall I leave you behind again,” he said. “I realise now that that was a mistake.”

That made John pause and stare at him. Sherlock admitting to a mistake was so unheard of that for a wild moment John wondered if he was hallucinating.

Sherlock made an impatient noise and stepped forward to take his tea from the counter. “It's immaterial until he makes a move,” he said, and disappeared into the sitting room.

John stayed where he was for a while, thinking about what the return of Moriarty might mean for them both, before deciding that it didn't really matter. They'd faced plenty of criminals over the last two years, many of them just as insane as Moriarty, and some of them almost as clever. They'd won through every single time and John had enough confidence in Sherlock, and in himself, to believe that they could win out against him as well.

He followed Sherlock into the sitting room, where he had sunk onto the sofa with his tea, feet drawn up so that John could fit in next to him. John sat down with a little sigh, cradling his tea close. It was still too hot to drink, but just having it in his hand and knowing that he could drink it at a nice, relaxed pace was enough to make the tension start to flow out of him.

Sherlock let his feet stretch out to rest against John's leg once he was settled. He'd lost his shoes and socks somewhere since they'd got back, and the sight of his pale, bony ankles reminded John of sitting on this sofa with him on another occasion, when he had accepted Sherlock's mad proposal and agreed to marry him.

He could remember wanting to touch them then, and not doing it because who did that with their friends? Well, he and Sherlock did, apparently. He could still remember Mrs. Hudson's words: _It's essential to marry the most important person in your life, you know,_ and he felt the last of his tension unwind.

He put his hand on Sherlock's foot, running his thumb across the bump of his ankle, then nodded at the remote, which was on the arm of the sofa behind Sherlock. “Want to see if we can find another appallingly bad film to mock?”

Sherlock gave him a broad grin, twitching his toes beneath John's hand, then turned to reach for the remote.


End file.
